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Saturday, 14 May 2011

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Cambodia's Curse: The modern history of a troubled land by Joel Brinkley

Reviewed by Sebastian Strangio

PHNOM PENH - In June 2010, diplomats and donors converged on a conference hall in Cambodia's capital for a meeting with senior government officials. Seated in rows with headphones beaming in live translations, donor representatives listened to key ministers speak about the country's progress on a series of agreed to good governance reforms.

Despite concerns raised about a spate of illegal land grabs, persistent human-rights abuses and legal harassment of government critics - all of which prompted the usual vague assurances from officials that the situation would improve - donors offered development aid totaling an unprecedented US$1.1 billion for fiscal 2010-11.

Aid to Cambodia has increased more or less consistently since the United Nations Transitional Authority's (UNTAC) departure from the country in 1993. A child of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, UNTAC was designed to bring an end to Cambodia's long civil war, establish a functioning electoral system and eventually usher in economic development.

For any observer of contemporary Cambodia, however, the optimism of the UNTAC era now seems almost quaint. If one accepts political commentator Fareed Zakaria's dictum that a democratic system is better symbolized by the impartial judge than the mass plebiscite (Cambodia, after all, has elections), then one glance at the judicial system - where bribery and political interference are more or less the norm - is all it takes to conclude that the country is not meaningfully democratic.

While the Khmer Rouge era has produced reams of historical accounts and personal memoirs, most books focused on contemporary Cambodia peter out in the late 1990s following the death of the Khmer Rouge insurgency and the end of the country's bloody civil war. How Cambodia has since dealt with the wages of peace remains largely unexamined.

It is therefore welcome that American journalist Joel Brinkley chose Cambodia as the subject for his fifth book, Cambodia's Curse: the modern history of a troubled land. Brinkley, a 25-year veteran of the New York Times who shared a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the refugee crisis that followed the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, returned to Cambodia in 2008 to examine what it had done with UNTAC's $3 billion "gift". What he finds is a country bereft of the rule of law and plagued by grinding poverty, where human development indices are among the lowest in Asia.

Brinkley does a commendable job in sketching out the contours of Cambodian society. His narrative is enlivened by the voices of individual Cambodians who have been marginalized by the country's corrupt political system. Traveling around the country, he examines Cambodia's courts, schools and health system, all of which have been bled dry by graft and hollowed out by years of official neglect.

He visits ramshackle settlements on the edges of Phnom Penh, where thousands of residents have been dumped after being illegally uprooted from valuable land in the city center, and highlights the nexus of corrupt officials and businessmen who have plundered Cambodia's natural resources for personal gain. In one of the book's more memorable passages, Brinkley interviews tycoon and senator Mong Reththy at his luxurious Phnom Penh villa, listening to the businessman proffer a series of thin excuses about the origins of his lavish wealth.

Unfortunately, the book's text is marred by a series of small factual errors. Officials or political parties are occasionally misidentified (Deputy Prime Minister Sok An is not a member of the government's ruling triumvirate, whose three-headed insignia Brinkley spots on the wristwatch of a government official); the now daily Phnom Penh Post was never published weekly, though it was previously a fortnightly publication.

Brinkley also errs when he describes Pol Pot as having died a "free man" in 1998. In fact, the Khmer Rouge leader was living under house arrest at the time of his death after facing a kangaroo court set up by the last remaining members of his Maoist movement. His preface ends with the puzzling assertion that Cambodians "remain the most abused people in the world", a phrase that invites rather aimless comparison with other unfortunate nations in the developing world.

The book's best passages deal with the complex relationship between Cambodia and its Western aid donors. The author deftly charts the process by which government officials, through a combination of flattery and feigned outrage, have learnt to manipulate foreign governments into pledging ever-higher amounts of development assistance, all the while presiding over a system that has consigned the majority of Cambodians to poverty. He also pours acid on those foreign aid workers who, attached to the country's comfortable expatriate lifestyle - Phnom Penh's parallel economy of "espresso bars and stylish restaurants" - see little incentive to rock the boat.

The text falters, however, when Brinkley attempts to answer the questions posed by his own narrative: why, in the final analysis, do contemporary Cambodians seem unable to struggle against those who exploit them? Why do so many seemingly accept poverty and exploitation as their natural lot in life? His thesis, built into the title of his book, is that Cambodia is somehow "cursed" by cultural hand-me-downs from its feudal past. "Far more than almost any other state," he writes, "modern Cambodia is a product of customs and practices set in stone a millennium ago".

"Given their history, given the subservient state Cambodians have accepted without complaint for more than a millennium, they don't seem to care," he adds. "Now, once again, most expect nothing more than they have. They carry no ambitions. They hold no dreams. All they want is to be left alone."

This is hardly the case. The country's modern history is rife with examples of rebellion, of which the Khmer Rouge, while representing its bloody apotheosis, was far from the only significant manifestation. Brinkley's assertion also fails to account for the villagers who have fought back against land grabbing by corrupt officials and the continuing efforts of those human-rights activists, trade union leaders and opposition figures who have stood up to demand more official accountability, often at threat to their lives.

For Brinkley, Cambodia's great hope lies in its foreign donors. If only such governments and international institutions put pressure on prime minister Hun Sen's government to enact key reforms and respect international human-rights law, he reasons, Cambodians might "after 1,000 years" be delivered from their perpetual suffering.

Given Brinkley's emphasis on foreign countries - some of his main sources, tellingly, are former US ambassadors to Cambodia - it is surprising that the rise of China rates only a brief mention in the book's epilogue. In recent years, Beijing has risen to become Cambodia's main source of investment and economic aid, a development that has undoubtedly complicated the West's ability to take a principled policy stand. The related point is that Western donors may actually have wider strategic objectives than promoting human rights or good governance.

By appealing to cultural essentialism and putting much of the onus for change on Cambodia's foreign donors, Brinkley leaves little scope for the possibility that Cambodians themselves may be able to forge their own path to a better life. As the yearly government-donor meetings play out year after year with much the same effect, there may, at the end of the day, be little in the way of an alternative.

Cambodia's Curse: The modern history of a troubled land by Joel Brinkley. PublicAffairs, 2011. ISBN 1586487876. Price US$27.99, 416 pages.

Sebastian Strangio is a journalist based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He can be reached at sebastian.strangio@gmail.com.

In this photo taken on March 17, 2011, a man breaks down his house on the edge of Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh's largest lake. Thousands in the area face eviction, thanks to a questionable deal that has turned over some of the Cambodian capital's priciest real estate to a company reportedly owned by a close associate of the prime minister. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

In this photo taken on March, 17, 2011, a woman stands by a window of her house on the edge of Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh's largest lake. She and other residents of the area are being evicted from their homes to make way for upscale villas and office buildings. The dispute over Boeung Kak lake has embarrassed the World Bank and led to an unusually tense standoff with Cambodia's government. The bank issued an ultimatum in March demanding a halt to evictions and higher compensation for landowners. A May 8 deadline has been pushed back to next Monday. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

In this photo taken on March 17, 2011, rubble are scattered around houses on the edge of Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh's largest lake. The residents of the area are being evicted from their homes to make way for upscale villas and office buildings. The dispute over Boeung Kak lake has embarrassed the World Bank and led to an unusually tense standoff with Cambodia's government. The bank issued an ultimatum in March demanding a halt to evictions and higher compensation for landowners. A May 8 deadline has been pushed back to next Monday. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

In this photo taken on March, 17, 2011, a man walks among the rubble of houses almost removed on the edge of Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh's largest lake. The man and other residents of the area are being evicted from their homes to make way for upscale villas and office buildings. The dispute over Boeung Kak lake has embarrassed the World Bank and led to an unusually tense standoff with Cambodia's government. The bank issued an ultimatum in March demanding a halt to evictions and higher compensation for landowners. A May 8 deadline has been pushed back to next Monday. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

In this photo taken on March, 17, 2011, a house stands on the edge of Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh's largest lake. Thousands in the area face eviction, thanks to a questionable deal that has turned over some of the Cambodian capital's priciest real estate to a company reportedly owned by a close associate of the prime minister. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

In this photo taken on March, 17, 2011, the residents work on their house on the edge of Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh's largest lake. Thousands in the area face eviction, thanks to a questionable deal that has turned over some of the Cambodian capital's priciest real estate to a company reportedly owned by a close associate of the prime minister. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

In this photo taken on Nov. 16, 2010, the Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh's largest lake is seen close to areas where villagers are evicted from their homes to make way for upscale villas and office buildings. Thousands face eviction because of a questionable deal turning over some of the Cambodian capital's priciest real estate to a company reportedly owned by a close associate of the prime minister. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

In this photo taken on March 17, 2011, an elderly woman sits on a bed as she waits for medical treatment at her house on the edge of Boeung Kak, Phnom Penh's largest lake. Thousands in the area face eviction, thanks to a questionable deal that has turned over some of the Cambodian capital's priciest real estate to a company reportedly owned by a close associate of the prime minister. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

via CAAI

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A manmade sand dune looms over Cham Pothisak's tin-roof and plywood shack, left by builders who want to transform the sprawling slum-like neighborhoods on the periphery of Phnom Penh's largest lake into fancy villas and office space.

Cham and his family are among 10,000 people who face eviction because of a questionable deal turning over some of the Cambodian capital's priciest real estate to a company reportedly owned by a close associate of the prime minister.

Their predicament stems in part from a flawed $23.4 million World Bank program that was supposed to prevent such land grabs by strengthening people's title to their land. The problems illustrate how difficult it can be for well-intentioned outsiders to bring about change in developing countries plagued by corruption and entrenched interests.

The dispute over Boeung Kak lake has embarrassed the World Bank and led to an unusually tense standoff with Cambodia's government. The bank issued an ultimatum in March demanding a halt to evictions and higher compensation for landowners. A May 8 deadline has been pushed back to next Monday, though the bank is not likely to act immediately.

The 38-year-old Cham likens the situation to life under the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Marxist regime that terrorized the country for four years in the late 1970s.

"We're angry but we can't do anything against them," he said. "It's like the Khmer Rouge all over again. We're helpless."

The root of the mess lies with the Khmer Rouge, which outlawed private property in a bid to create an agricultural utopia. An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians were killed or died of starvation or disease under its brutal rule and failed polices.

Since the Khmer Rouge was ousted in 1979, the United Nations and other international groups have tried to help rebuild the country and its government institutions, with mixed results. Democracy has struggled; Prime Minister Hun Sen consolidated power in a 1997 coup and has not relinquished it since. A real estate boom has driven land-grabbing by wealthy or politically connected developers to new heights, activists say.

In 2002, the World Bank, the Washington-based institution focused on development and poverty reduction, helped set up the Land Monitoring and Administration Program to build a system of paper titles and central registries. Germany, Canada and Finland helped finance the effort.

When the lands in question were marginal, the system appeared to work. Government surveyors interviewed owners, reviewed documents and issued more than 1.2 million titles, a sign of the program's success, the bank says.

But when business interests wanted land — for logging, sugar plantations or real estate, for example — the process actually left some more vulnerable to eviction.

That's because government officials running the program would simply reject claims from poor landowners or deny them the right to appeal, said David Pred, whose organization Bridges Across Borders Cambodia advocates for landowners.

"Meanwhile, the wealthy and well-connected have little difficulty in acquiring land title in high value areas in which poor communities reside due to their connections or their ability to pay the high 'unofficial fees,'" Pred wrote in an email.

A 2006 report done for the German government's aid agency found that 20 percent of households surveyed were refused the right to prove ownership of their property, according a land-use consultant with firsthand knowledge of the report. The consultant spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is not public.

Many landowners around Boeung Kak — a 330-acre (133-hectare) bowl of sewage-filled water and trash-littered marshes in the shadow of high-rise banks and government ministries — expected to have a chance to argue their claims after workers began surveying their properties in May 2006.

But in January 2007, authorities surprised residents, activists and foreign donors by refusing to acknowledge any records of the residents' properties, essentially pre-empting any ownership claims.

The next month, the government announced that a company called Shukaku Inc. had acquired the development rights to the lake under a $79 million, government-backed 99-year lease. The land was worth far more, residents say.

Shukaku's chief is widely reported to be Lao Meng Khin, a ruling party senator, reclusive businessman and close associate of Hun Sen.

By August 2008, workers had started pumping sand into the lake, creating berms like the one menacing Cham's house. Torrents of sand and water flooded some homes almost instantly, sometimes in the dead of night. The World Bank and many foreign embassies complained.

In September 2009, the government abruptly canceled the land title program, citing what Hun Sen called "complicated conditions."

Most of the lake is now filled, the sand all but destroying its ecology. More than 2,000 families have already moved. The remaining landowners complain that the compensation being offered is laughable, particularly given skyrocketing real estate values.

Authorities "aren't stupid, they're just corrupt. They just have no conscience," said Tep Vanny, who faces eviction from her house on the lake's east side. "It's a way to keep the people poor, and for them to stay in power."

Government officials, including the Phnom Penh governor and the national government's chief spokesman, either refused to comment or take a reporter's repeated phone calls.

In an internal report released March 8, World Bank inspectors concluded the land title program was flawed in its design, violated bank social and environmental policies and may have made it easier to evict landowners.

The bank also warned that it would reconsider both current and future projects in Cambodia if the government doesn't help resolve the Boeung Kak controversy. Bank President Robert Zoellick took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the government on the day the inspectors' report was released.

Aid experts say the government does not want to be seen as being pushed around by a foreign institution and may be using the fight as a signal to keep other donors in check. For the World Bank, its credibility is at stake if a strong-arm government can ride roughshod over bank policies to protect the poor.

Sia Phearum, head of a Cambodian housing rights organization, said that people in many countries welcome development projects and the hope they bring for better lives — but not in Cambodia.

A disagreement between the Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutors over whether more investigation is needed in a controversial case has rekindled worries over whether the UN-backed court will meet its mandate.

Victims of the regime, who were supposed to be well-integrated into the workings of the court, have meanwhile begun complaining more frequently they are dissatisfied with their roles in the court and their treatment by it, threatening the legacy of a tribunal that was initially seen as a model of international justice and reconciliation for mass atrocities like genocide.

International prosecutor Andrew Cayley said in a statement this week the investigating judges for the court need to go back and re-investigate so-called Case 003, which involves two unnamed suspects. He also urged the court to name the suspects publicly and inform them they are under investigation.

His counterpart, Chea Leang, however, said in her own statement this week she did not believe the two suspects ought to be considered “most responsible” for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge and therefore do not fall under the mandate of the court.

The public division between the two prosecutors highlights longstanding splits within the hybrid court, along with accusations of political interference from the prime minister, as victims, lawyers and other observers questioned whether it will be able to perform its functions.

“Its hard to deny there is governmental interference,” said Lao Monghay, an independent researcher and political analyst. “Because the position of the Cambodian government and the position of the Cambodian co-prosecutor are not different, and sometimes they use the same words.”

Tribunal officials said Friday the remarks between the prosecutors were nothing more than disagreements over legal matters. Such a disagreement cannot, however, stop a request for further investigation, the officials said.

The tribunal has only tried one suspect, torture chief Duch, and is preparing for a second case, for four jailed leaders. Cases 003 and 004 would require further arrests of five more Khmer Rouge cadre.

“From what we do know, there has been no field investigation carried out in these cases,” said James Goldston, executive director of the US-based Open Society Justice Initiative. “Nor have any of the suspects been questioned, which would seem to fall far short of what is required [for the court] to comply with international standards for criminal investigation.”

Goldston has been sharply critical of apparent political interference in the court’s work, especially in statements by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is adamantly against any further indictments by the court. Goldston said this week OSJI monitors in Cambodia were reporting concerns that the outcomes of those cases had been “pre-determined.”

“If confirmed, these reports would undermine both the appearance and reality of independence and impartiality, two qualities which are central to the integrity of any court,” he said.

The perception of political interference in the court, which only stood up in 2006 after years of wrangling between the UN and Cambodia, along with reports of corruption, kickbacks and mismanagement, have shaken the faith of some in its ability to independently dispense justice.

“In the end, the UN will jump when Prime Minister Hun Sen tells them to jump,” said Peter Maguire, a US law professor and author of “Facing Death in Cambodia.” “Their submission is a well-established fact at this point.”

He called the court “dysfunctional” and talk of any further trials “premature.”

The tribunal has been an experimental mix of international and Cambodia staff, prosecutors and judges, hosted in the country where mass atrocity crimes were committed and with an aim of national reconciliation.

Maguire said that in the end if the court fails to try four leaders already in custody—Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith—before they die, it will have proven itself “a farce that should never be attempted again.”

Whether those four can be tried is one question. And whether more should be further investigated, indicted and tried is still another.

David Tolbert, a former UN representative to the tribunal, said this week there appeared to be “strong arguments” those suspects in cases 003 and 004 are “most responsible” for the crimes.

“We will see what happens,” he said in an interview.

The court has so far refused to indentify five suspects in those two trials. However, scholars and civil party complainants have named those whom they believe to be most likely: Su Meth, commander of the Khmer Rouge air force; Meas Muth, commander of its navy; Im Chaem, a district chief; Ta An, a regional commander in Kampong Thom province; and Ta Tith, a regional commander in Takeo province.

Contacted by phone Tuesday, Im Chaem, who now lives as a commune leader in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anglong Veng, in Oddar Meanchey province, said she was not concerned about an indictment.

“Prime Minister Hun Sen said he would protect me,” she told VOA Khmer by phone. “He said only five will be allowed brought [to justice], and said, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be allowed to be brought anywhere,’ so one has confidence in his word. He seems to have maintained his word consistently, making the people warm to him.”

Im Chaem was alluding to concerns that further indictments would stir the long-dormant regime, many of whom folded into the government in 1998 after promises of amnesty for their crimes under the Khmer Rouge.

She said she has never been questioned by anyone from the tribunal, but maintained she had done nothing wrong while during the regime’s rule. “I was commanding, under leadership,” she said.

Meas Muth—who retired only a year ago with the rank of major general, as an adviser to the Ministry of Defense—also warned of instability, were he to be arrested and brought to trial by the court. Former subordinates would rise up, he said, including those who are currently soldiers along the border, where Cambodia is currently undergoing a military standoff with Thailand.

“I see it like this,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday: “Because the situation along the border is not good, and national development is not moving well, then if we are stirred up it will more or less impact the feeling of some troops that are in [the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces], who are standing as a fence along the border.”

He too denied any personal responsibility for the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, saying he had “struggled” for preservation of the nation.

Such positions by former Khmer Rouge highlight the concerns for the Cambodian government, said Hang Chhaya, executive director of the Khmer Institute for Democracy.

“They have to be careful, because ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers are still out there,” he said Friday. “They don’t want to touch their feelings, because Case 003 could be related to the civil war’s end in 1998.”

Dissatisfaction with the court

Victims of the Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, are growing increasingly disillusioned with the court.

In its first guilty verdict, the court sentenced Kaing Kek Iev, the Tuol Sleng prison chief better known as Duch, to a commuted 19 years in prison. It offered little in the way of reconciliation, putting the names of only some of his victims on the court’s website and offering copies of Duch’s testimony to the public.

Many people whose family members were among more than 12,000 tortured at the prison and later executed, and handful of survivors, were not happy with the seemingly light sentence and meager compensation.

Disillusionment has only grown, as tribunal officials have further limited participation of civil parties in court proceedings.

On Thursday, Seng Theary, a US-based lawyer who has emerged as a leader of victim participants and a vocal critic of the court, called for the dismissal of several top tribunal officials.

In a public statement, she called for the UN’s top representative at the court, Knut Rosandhaug, and its investigating judge, Siegfried Blunk, to resign because they had failed to adequately include civil participants.

That followed a court announcement on April 29 that investigating judges had “concluded” their investigation into Case 003, which procedurally should have given 15 days to prosecutors and civil parties to review the case and request further investigation.

However, because defendants in that case have not been publicly named, civil party lawyers said they could not properly engage in the proceedings.

OSJI’s Goldston said the April 29 notice did not apprise victims of how they could be a part of the case, a lapse he called “troubling.”

“For a variety of reasons, victims of crimes under investigation in cases 003/004 should have ample information and opportunity to participate,” he said in an e-mail. “We are hopeful that the court will grant the international co-prosecutor’s stated request to extend the period within which victims must file applications to be heard.”

Tolbert, the former UN representative who now heads the International Center for Transitional Justice, said the victims’ needs had been mishandled. It would be a “travesty,” he said, if the victims were limited in their participation by such an approach.

Cayley, the international prosecutor, has requested an extension for victims to file for the upcoming cases by six weeks, but even that falls short, said Nou Leakhena, who has helped gather US-Cambodian victims for participation in the trial.

“The deadline set by the international prosecutor is not realistic,” she told VOA Khmer. “He should be serious about this. This is like playing around with the victims, undermining their mental vulnerability.”

Meanwhile, she said the Cayley and Chea Leang are supposed to be representing victims against the defendants, not arguing publicly.

“Why don’t they agree with each other?” she said. “This raises suspicion that the court is under political influence.”

Added together, there is lingering doubt among some tribunal observers that cases 003 and 004 will come to a conclusion, which would mean the court, after many years and millions of dollars, would have only tried five people at most.

“Before, we thought it was just an issue of independence,” Long Panhavuth, program officer for the Cambodia Justice Initiative, told “Hello VOA” Thursday. “And now it moves to [an issue] of neutrality and especially relates to the integrity of some international staffers. Some have not fulfilled their roles and obligations to ensure they provide justice and the court’s independence and impartiality.”

Some issues were not coming from the government or Cambodian side, he said, “but from the internationals directly.” He did not elaborate.

Issues that should have been solved long ago are coming to the fore, he said, at “the last minute,” which threatened the proceedings for cases 002, 003 and 004.

May 13, 2011: Although the government has finally agreed to new elections on July 3rd, it has arrested two opposition (red shirt populists) leaders, with more expected to be seized. The red shirts fear that the ruling royalists will again try to fix the elections again. The border dispute with Cambodia is seen as another effort by the minority royalist government to stay in power.

On the Cambodian border, two weeks of fighting has killed dozens and wounded over a hundred. Nearly 100,000 civilians have fled the fighting. Ceasefire deals get arranged regularly, only to be quickly broken by troops (usually Thai) opening fire. Officers cannot, or will not, control their troops.

May 10, 2011: Thailand has blocked fuel exports to Cambodia, in an effort to coerce Cambodia to agree to a peace deal for the festering border dispute. Cambodian border communities can get fuel from other sources, but this will take time to arrange, and there will be shortages for a while.

May 9, 2011: The government gives in and agrees to new elections in July.

May 8, 2011: Islamic terrorists in the south killed two Buddhists.

May 7, 2011: Islamic terrorists in the south used two bombs to kill seven police and troops. The prime ministers of Cambodia and Thailand met, but were unable to settle their border dispute.

May 4, 2011: Four Moslem civilians were killed by Islamic terrorists in the south. The growing cooperation with police by Moslem civilians in the south has resulted in more efforts to terrorize Moslems into not cooperating with police. However, Islamic terror groups, and some Moslems, blame attacks like this on the army.

May 3, 2011: Shooting continued on the Cambodian border, with a least one Thai soldier killed today.

May 2, 2011: Fighting died down on the Cambodian border, and some civilians returned home.

April 29, 2011: Shooting on the Cambodian border entered its eighth day.

April 28, 2011: Another truce was arranged on the Cambodian border, but it was soon broken as someone opened fire, beginning a new gun duel.

April 26, 2011: Yet another ceasefire agreement with Cambodia, but trigger-happy troops on both sides tends to make these peace deals short-lived. In the south, two Islamic terrorist bombs went off, wounding four soldiers. In the north, police shut down a pro-red shirt (populist) radio station.

April 25, 2011: Fighting on the Cambodian border, interrupted only by ceasefire days that don't even last a full 24 hours, has over a dozen people in the last four days.

JAKARTA, May 13 (Xinhua) -- An Indonesian government official said on Friday that the Cambodian government has approved the peace solution proposed by Indonesia to settle the armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.

"Thailand government has yet to approve the package solution. The approval would wait for its cabinet meeting scheduled within the next few days," Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Micahel Tene said here.

Michael added that the package solution was in the recent trilateral meeting between Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia foreign ministers here on May 9, following tough discussions on the issue during the 18th ASEAN Summit recently.

The meeting among foreign ministers of the three countries was mandated by the previous trilateral meeting among President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and prime ministers of Thailand and Cambodia in the summit.

As the implementation of the proposal Indonesian Observer Team (IOT) would be deployed in the disputed border area according to a timeline inside the package, monitoring efforts and condition in the fields that favoring to peace solution.

Besides that the quick announcement of the establishment of General Border Committee (GBC) and Thailand's approval on the terms contained in the Terms of Reference (TOR) towards the deployment of IOT was also part of requirement to the package solution.

Thailand and Cambodia agreed that conflict between them be settled in ASEAN-facilitated measures with Indonesia, the ASEAN chair this year.

SURIN, May 14 -- Cross border trade at Chong Jom border point with Cambodia in the Thai northeastern province of Surin was reportedly active this morning as many Cambodians crossed the border and bought large amounts of consumer products.

Surin's Chong Jom border point, which was reopened May 4 after it was closed by Thai officials following bloody clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops in the disputed border area on April 22, was seen as active again as many Cambodians crossed the border and bought consumer products, including vegetables and fruits. Shops owned by Thais and Cambodians were also open as vendors gained confidence that the situation has returned to normal in the area.

Many tourists were also seen wandering in the area.

Chong Jom border point is considered one of the key market places in Thailand's lower northeastern region which borders Cambodia.

At least Bt4 million changed hands at this border point on normal working days while trade is more lively on weekends. (MCOT online news)

India’s deoiled meals would remain in high demand in the overseas markets, as China and Cambodia emerge as the key export destinations for the commodity. According to the details provided by the Solvent Extractors Association of India (SEA), oilmeal exports from India have seen a sharp rise over the past one year, and the trend is expected to continue in the coming months.

According to the SEA estimates, China is now emerging as a key export destination for oilmeals. The neighbouring country is buying large quantities of extractions of rapeseed, soybean and groundnut from India. The total exports from India are expected to be around 500,000 tonnes per annum, valuing over Rs 600 crore.

Also, Cambodia is opening up its doors for the Indian oilmeals, due to better quality and convenient logistics. Traditionally, oilmeals that were used as cattle feed and poultry feed, were exported to countries such as Vietnam, Singapore and Philippines. India exports deoiled meals of soyabean, rapeseed, castor and groundnut.

A SEA delegation, led by its president Sushil Goenka, visited China and Cambodia during April 23 and May 3, with an objective to strengthen the relations with the end users of Indian deoiled meals (extractions). India being a producer of non-genetically modified variety of oilmeal, there were better prospects for overseas demand.

The delegation found China to be a potential market for exports of Indian deoiled meals, particularly for rapeseed. The exports can be doubled in the next three years from the present level of half a million tonne, SEA noted.

In order to promote the export of oilmeals, SEA has decided to participate in various exhibitions being held across China from time to time to create further awareness about Indian oilmeals, as well as create confidence in the minds of the Indian buyers being a serious and regular source of supply for oilmeals.

The army chief has promoted hawkish colonels to take charge in pro-Thaksin Shinawatra areas of the country and fielded easy-going commanders along the border with Cambodia.

Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha signed the 99/2554 order on May 11 for the reshuffle of 157 colonels and lieutenant colonels.

Copies of the order were distributed yesterday.

Sources said the reshuffle partly reflects promotions for officers who took part in cracking down on red shirt protesters last year and was apparently to ensure order in the lead-up to the July 3 election.

The army chief appointed commanders of forces under the 7th and the 17th Infantry Regiments that are under the control of the 3rd Army which supervises the North, a stronghold of pro-Thaksin red shirt demonstrators.

Under the reshuffle order, Lt Col Wanchai Maneewan, the strategic chief of the 4th Infantry Regiment, becomes the commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 17th Infantry Regiment. Lt Col Chaidaen Krisanasuwan is the new commander of the 5th Battalion of the 7th Infantry Regiment.

Lt Col Chaicharn Teerapichetthapong, an inspector of the 4th Infantry Regiment, becomes the commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Infantry Regiment.

The reshuffle also covers key officers in the 1st Division, King's Own Guard under the First Army, which is responsible for order in Bangkok.

They include Col Asasuek Khantirat, deputy commander of the 4th Battalion of the 1st Infantry Regiment, King's Own Guard , who becomes the commander of the battalion in place of Col Chalat Jaemsai who has been made a deputy personnel director of the 1st Army Corps.

Col Kanchai Prachuap-aree, who took part in cracking down on red shirt protesters at Ratchaprasong intersection and on Rang Nam Road in Bangkok during the May unrest last year is promoted from the chief-of-staff of the 31st Infantry Regiment, King's Guard, to deputy commander of the regiment.

He is expected to command the regiment later.

Gen Prayuth has assigned officers who have good ties with Cambodian army commanders to serve along the Thai-Cambodian border.

Among them, Col Nat Sri-in, chief-of-staff of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, becomes commander of the 26th Ranger Regiment Task Force. He supervises operations at Ta Kwai and Ta Muen temples in Surin province and he swaps his position with Col Adul Boonthamcharoen.

A source said Col Nat had coordinated and developed close ties with Cambodian army officers. He headed Thai delegations to negotiate with Cambodian commanders and their talks led to a truce at the Ta Muen and Ta Kwai temples.

Another Thai officer with good ties to Cambodian troops is Maj Piya Nongchana, deputy commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, who will become a lieutenant colonel and deputy commander of the 26th Ranger Regiment Task Force.

Meanwhile, in the 4th Army, Col Niti Tinsulanonda, a nephew of Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda, has been named the commander of the 44th Ranger Forces Regiment in Pattani after being in charge of the 2nd battalion of the Satun-based 5th Infantry Regiment.

Yes, you want to visit Angkor. But for a more complete understanding of the Southeast Asian nation, also include visits to Khmer Rouge-era sites.

By Susan Spano

Special to the Los Angeles Times

May 15, 2011

Reporting from Anlong Veng, Cambodia —— A muddy, weed-choked field in the hills of northern Cambodia is the last resting place of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, chief instigator of a communist regime that enslaved a nation, dismantled its social and cultural institutions and took the lives of 2 million or more people. In life, he was a cipher, known only to a handful of confederates. He died of a reported heart attack in 1998, with his revolution collapsed around him.

While United Nations-backed war crimes trials of surviving Khmer Rouge henchmen drag on in Phnom Penh, and another strongman, Hun Sen, also considered oppressive, rules the country, the Cambodian people go about their business. In a country where almost everyone lost family members — and in many cases entire families — no one needs to be reminded about the catastrophe.

Tourists are a different matter, especially those who do not remember or may never have known what happened in Cambodia in the 1970s. Even now, travelers usually visit Cambodia for one reason: to see Angkor, a vast complex of Hindu and Buddhist temples built by the Khmer Empire, which ruled most of Southeast Asia from about 800 to 1400.

On a trip to Cambodia last fall, I visited Angkor, of course. But I went primarily to see places where the story of the Khmer Rouge era played out. Journeys Within, a small tour company with headquarters in Siem Reap, in the north-central part of the country, helped me find them in the capital of Phnom Penh and along rutted roads and in dirt-poor villages at the back of beyond.

My aspirations were modest: to learn, if not to understand, how the unthinkable happened in Cambodia. Like the Holocaust, evil on this scale confounds human understanding.

The nightmare began April 17, 1975, when Cambodian communists defeated the nationalist forces of U.S.-backed dictator Lon Nol and entered Phnom Penh. Like phantoms, they came out of the countryside where they had waged a five-year-long guerrilla war, most of them hardened teenagers wearing sandals made of tire rubber, baggy black shirts and trousers and red-and-white scarves still sold as souvenirs.

By that time, war refugees from the provinces had streamed into the city, swelling the population from 600,000 to as many as 3 million. Food, housing and medical supplies were scarce. People welcomed the Khmer Rouge, never imagining that in a matter of days they would be herded onto roads with only what they could carry.

The mass evacuation of Phnom Penh, a Khmer Rouge "extraordinary measure" intended to expedite the country's transformation into an agrarian communist state, took the lives of 20,000 people and left the capital a ghost town.

The journey begins

On my way into Phnom Penh from the airport my car passed the French Embassy on Monivong Boulevard. The walled compound has been reconstructed since 1975. But at the gate I heard echoes from "The Killing Fields," a 1984 movie based on a celebrated New York Times Magazine article by Sydney Schanberg, about the fate of foreign nationals and officials from the fallen regime who sought shelter at the embassy when the communists took possession of Phnom Penh. Most foreigners were allowed to leave the country, but the French were forced to surrender the Cambodians, including Schanberg's research assistant Dith Pran, to all but certain death. (Pran escaped, later moving to the U.S., where he died in 2008.)

Only the misinformed come to Phnom Penh expecting the charming capital that grew up around the confluences of the Mekong, Bassac and Tonle Sap rivers during the French era (1864-1953) and the freewheeling '50s and '60s under playboy-king Norodom Sihanouk.

A surprisingly canny politician, Sihanouk led his country to independence from the French in 1953 and sought to maintain its neutrality while war raged in Vietnam, winking at the use of border regions by communist guerrillas and the dispatch of American B-52s to eradicate them. The U.S. bombing campaign, begun in secret in 1969 by President Nixon, ultimately spilled a half-million tons of munitions over Cambodia and drove peasants into the open arms of the Khmer Rouge.

Phnom Penh has a jerry-built air, as if it materialized overnight. In recent years stylish cafes, restaurants and hotels have begun to return to the city center, including the Quay, where I stayed in a room high over a boulevard along the Tonle Sap River.

The standard sightseeing itinerary is short, usually ending with a pilgrimage to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, established after the 1979 Vietnamese occupation. The museum was a school before the Khmer Rouge turned it into a detention center for purported enemies of the state. It was run by Comrade Kang Keck Ieu, alias "Duch," who had been a math teacher at the school. Purges that filled Tuol Sleng began almost as soon as the communists took power, inspired partly by the paranoia of leaders such as Pol Pot and partly by the Cultural Revolution in China.

There were no trials for the men and women imprisoned at Tuol Sleng. All Duch's staff had to do before packing the prisoners into trucks, headed for the mass graveyard in the nearby village of Choeung Ek, was to get them to admit their crimes and name fellow saboteurs. Mug shots and detailed, largely fabricated confessions kept by prison clerks are displayed in cellblocks, along with forensic reports on skulls unearthed nearby.

The Documentation Center of Cambodia, a research institute founded in 1997, estimates that the Khmer Rouge regime operated 189 similar prisons around the country, filling 380 mass graves.

I next visited the most infamous of these killing fields at Choeung Ek, where about 20,000 prisoners from Tuol Sleng were beaten to death and dumped in trenches across the soggy plain. The biggest trench contains 450 victims, another has 166 headless corpses and another was reserved exclusively for the bodies of women and children. In all, the remains of about 9,000 people have been uncovered at the site, though more bones and teeth turn up almost every time it rains.

The small museum at Choeung Ek has a display on Duch. Brought to the killing field while awaiting trial by the U.N.-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in 2008, he reportedly cried for forgiveness.

Two years later he was found guilty of crimes against humanity, murder and torture, then sentenced to 35 years in prison. There he remains, the only high-level Khmer Rouge official brought to justice to date.

I flew to Siem Reap the next morning, a quick hop over green, waterlogged central Cambodia, to the amiable tourist trap that has grown up since the late 1990s when sightseers began to return to Angkor. Now a city with a population of about 100,000, Siem Reap has a new branch of the national museum, an international airport, resplendent resort hotels and a flush economy driven by tourism, which accounts for one-fifth of the country's gross domestic product.

It is easy to visit Siem Reap without understanding the significance of bullet marks on the lintels at Angkor Wat; the limbless beggars around the downtown market; and the poverty, waste and deprivation left on the back streets in the wake of the civil war.

With Khmer Empire architectural glories nearby, it would be easy to skip the Cambodian Landmine Museum and Relief Center about 20 miles northeast of town. When I visited, I met its founder, Aki Ra, who at the age of 10 was given a gun by the Khmer Rouge and sent into the rice paddies to set explosives. After the war he devoted his life to dismantling 50,000 land mines left in the countryside and to raising maimed and orphaned children, work that last year won him nomination as a CNN Hero.

Later, sitting with a group of young people who received scholarships from the nonprofit development organization created by Journeys Within, it was easy to read promise in their bright eyes and smiles, to forget why a third of the Cambodian population is under the age of 15. Yet it was teenagers even younger than these who were raised by the Khmer Rouge to kill with clubs and knives.

The dark pages of Cambodia's recent history are not taught in schools, the Journeys Within young people said, because former Khmer Rouge cadres are everywhere — working at the post office, driving cabs, living next door. Older people want to forget the horror, though it comes out in odd ways, accounting graduate Sophary Sophin said. When she was a little girl, her grandmother used to tell her, "If you are lazy, you will die."

Into the heartland

After that, I left with a driver and guide on a two-night road trip into the countryside, the long-lost heartland of Cambodia centered on village, temple and field. Once, most of the population lived on the land, where peasant farmers harvested three to four rice crops a year, revered their king, lighted candles at Buddhist shrines and raised big families with scant hope of betterment but enough to eat. Ideology had little to do with the role they played in the civil war; they joined nationalist troops or communist guerrilla bands depending on which side entered their village first.

When the Khmer Rouge took charge in 1975, moving city people to communal farms and construction projects in the country, peasants who were already there were somewhat favored by communist ideologues. But they, too, suffered starvation, disease and summary execution.

All this played through my mind as we headed north along dirt and single-lane roads toward the Dangrek Mountains on the Thai border where communist holdouts went to ground after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979.

On the way to Pol Pot's last lair and cremation site near the town of Anlong Veng, we passed rickety houses built on stilts, boys fishing for dinner in drainage culverts, card games in front of country stores selling gasoline in recycled Johnnie Walker bottles. As little as a dozen years ago, the area was still in the hands of the Khmer Rouge, scattered but not gone.

Anlong Veng has the insubstantial look of a Wild West town, with a single basic guesthouse, a few cafes and street carts heaped with tiny freshwater clams, a popular snack food. Its hospital, dike and dam were built by Ta Mok, a Khmer Rouge official nicknamed "The Butcher" who died in prison in 2006, awaiting trial. His former communications aide Mork Dett showed us the way to Ta Mok's lakeside villa, where Khmer Rouge adjutant Son Sen was killed along with 13 family members in 1997 on the orders of Pol Pot; and finally to Comrade No. 1's grave.

Even now, little is known about Pol Pot, except that he was born in 1925 with the name Saloth Sar and educated at a Catholic school in Phnom Penh. As a young man he traveled to Paris to study electronics and join the political underground, imbibing communism from tomes by Marx and Lenin he once admitted he did not fully understand. No one can say what turned a revolutionary into a mass murderer. Nor do all historians think that he was chiefly to blame for the Cambodian holocaust.

Standing at Pol Pot's grave, I mentally retraced the road I'd taken through Cambodia, showing how all the conditions were present that had allowed the Khmer Rouge to take power: poverty, ignorance, misgovernment, radical ideology, foreign intervention. The only additional element needed was the psychopath buried at my feet.

Reporting from Siem Reap, Cambodia —— Fifty years of civil war have left Cambodia a desperately poor and damaged nation with about a third of its 15 million people below the poverty line and a per capita gross domestic product of $739 a year.

When Brandon and Andrea Ross started Journeys Within, a tour company and B&B just outside Siem Reap, in 2003, they also were struck by the living conditions, especially in the countryside where people lack clean water, healthcare and all but rudimentary education.

Living here made Brandon, an American who grew up in Park City, Utah, appreciate his good fortune. At the same time, it changed him fundamentally. "I can't go back to seeing things the way I did before," he said.

The Ross travel enterprise, which offers special trips in Southeast Asia, such as a 30-day descent of the Mekong River from Yunnan Province in China to the delta in Vietnam, morphed into a charitable institution when the couple noticed how little money it takes to do big things in Cambodia. As Brandon explained, during a drought one year he saw women carrying water long distances and wondered about the cost of digging a well: $350.

Contributions from guests allowed the couple to develop Journeys Within Our Community into a U.S.-registered nonprofit organization that, along with digging village wells, provides university scholarships, free language classes and micro-loans for small businesses in Cambodia. Journeys Within travelers who contribute can take part in the programs by meeting students and visiting villages with new JWOC wells.

The organization has an annual budget of $180,000 and is kept small and locally rooted, with the Rosses, who now are the parents of two little girls, as its eyes and ears.

The couple became fascinated by the period from 1975 to 1979 when millions of Cambodians died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge or succumbed to famine and disease. In trying to understand the tragedy, Brandon and Andrea talked to survivors and visited places where the infamous history of the Khmer Rouge unfolded — stopping points on the itinerary they designed for me in October.

I took the Khmer Rouge tour to learn how the unimaginable happened in the little Southeast Asian nation, but along the way I found out something more pressing: how much is needed to right the wrongs and give the Cambodian people the same bright future everyone deserves.

Journeys Within Tour Co., bed and breakfast and charitable organization can be reached at (877) 454-3672 in the U.S., 011-855-123-7801 in Cambodia or at http://www.journeys-within.com

Siem Reap is a holly-land of Indochina, that's why if you take a Cambodia adventure packages, This vacation is the best choice. just contact us to get enough information : thugiang@vietlongtravel.com and phone: +084 946872007

There is a lot to see in the approximately 2½ hours drive as it takes you through many lively villages and along kilometers of rice paddies. Explore the long abandoned temple (11th century), strangled by the jungle

Depart for Koh Ker. A 10th century capital abandoned in the remote north of Cambodia for more than a thousand years .

Our team set up camp while we enjoy a visit to the pyramid temple of Prasat Thom. Continue to explore the many temples at this incredible site, including the beautiful Prasat Krahom covered by jungle

Transfer to Phnom Kulen and join the pilgrim path to walk up this sacred mountain of the Khmers. Swimming in the waterfall, then we carry on to the summit of the mountain to a pagoda for the overnight camp.

At early morning we plunge into a colourful surrounding such as high grass meadow, limestone clearing and deep jungle, to discover the exceptional site of Srah Dumrei, immense monolith sandstone of the Xth century representing elephants and lions, lost in the deep jungle. We leave the summit of the mountain with a vehicle for Kbal Spean, the sculptured river of the "thousand lingas". Visit of the site on walking. We carry on by vehicle up to the temple and village of Banteay Srei. Visit of this temple and returning to Siem Reap before nightfall. Finish your day by an aromatherapy or reflexology massage at Frangipani SPA.

PHNOM PENH, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia decided to postpone the Thai expo planned for next week in Phnom Penh, saying it is not the right time to hold such an expo.

"Due to recent restrictions on border trade by Thai military region 2, I am of the opinion that this is not the right time to promote Thai products in Cambodia," Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said in a letter to Thai embassy in Phnom Penh on Friday.

Cambodia's decision is a response to the 2nd Thai Army command' s order on Tuesday to halt a further exports of fuel and other products into Cambodia, claiming the Cambodian military may need them to support their troops in operations against Thai forces along the disputed border.

"The export ban will last until the border situation really returns to normal," the Bangkok Post online reported, citing the order letter of the 2nd Army command.

On Wednesday, Thailand announced that it would organize the second largest scale expo of Thai products in Phnom Penh from May 19-22.

"Therefore, I have issued instructions to the Department of Trade Promotion under the Ministry of Commerce to contact the organizers of the Thai exhibition 2011 to postpone the said event until more favorable time comes," added the minister.

Jiranan Wongmongkol, director of the Thai embassy's Foreign Trade Promotion Office in Phnom Penh, which is the event organizer, said Friday that the embassy has received the letter and agreed to cancel the event.

"We have no choice, we have to postpone the event," she said. "We don't know when it will be re-arranged."

Cambodia and Thailand has border dispute just a week after Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple was listed as World Heritage site on July 7, 2008. Thailand claims the ownership of 4.6 sq km of scrub next to the temple.

Since then, both sides have built up military forces along the border, and periodic clashes between the two countries' soldiers have resulted in the deaths of troops on both sides.

The latest flare-up occurred from April 22 until May 3 at the 13th century Ta Moan temple and Ta Krabei temple in Oddar Meanchey province, leaving 19 people, on both sides, killed and nearly 100, 000 civilians evacuated for safe shelters.

Phnom Penh - A German judge who jointly heads the investigation office at the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia has threatened to file contempt-of-court charges against the tribunal's international prosecutor.

The unprecedented development that two senior UN staff might face off within the tribunal's system came days after the prosecutor, Andrew Cayley, said an investigation by Judge Siegfried Blunk's office was deficient.

Blunk did not reply Friday to emailed questions, but the Cambodia Daily quoted him as saying it could 'write any story you like' after he declined to say what lay behind the contempt-of-court charges.

Cayley said Monday that he had reviewed the file prepared by Blunk's team on the third case in the prosecution of leaders of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge regime and would request the investigating judges do more work on it.

His comments seemed to confirm long-standing rumours that the judges have done little on the case.

Cayley, a British national, told the German Press Agency dpa Tuesday that case three still needed 'a substantial amount' of investigation and called on Blunk's office to notify the suspects they were under investigation and to interview them.

'And [there are] a number of other steps, including investigation of crime sites also originally named by the prosecution in the introductory submission, which haven't been investigated at all,' Cayley said.

Tribunal observers have long feared the investigating judges are trying to shelve the tribunal's third and fourth cases. That would suit the Cambodian government, which has repeatedly said it would not permit those cases to go to trial.

Asked whether the court was indeed trying to bury cases three and four, Blunk responded with a threat.

'The use of the word 'bury' is insolent, for which you are given leave to apologize within two days,' Blunk wrote in an email Tuesday without specifying a penalty.

Blunk's actions come at a critical time for the court as it prepares for its second case against four senior surviving Khmer Rouge leaders this year.

Cases three and four involve five unnamed former Khmer Rouge, who between them are thought to be directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.

But the investigating judges have refused to make public any details about either case, including which crime sites were under investigation, leading to accusations that they have deliberately excluded victims.

Tribunal monitor Clair Duffy of the Open Society Justice Initiative, which is funded by US billionaire George Soros and monitors the tribunal, said Friday that the case-three investigation had already done substantial damage to the tribunal's reputation.

She said news of possible contempt-of-court proceedings was 'potentially very damaging.'

'The potential message is that those seeking to act independently of political will and to act with integrity in the pursuit of justice will be laying themselves open to criminal sanction,' Duffy said.

In its first case, the tribunal last year convicted the Khmer Rouge's head of security, Comrade Duch, of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

More than 2 million people are thought to have died under the movement's rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

“I don’t consider that the investigation is concluded and I’ve asked for a number of steps to be taken including the interviewing of the suspects who are named in the introductory submission."

Prosecutors at the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh are at odds this week after investigating judges said they have completed their work on their third case - reportedly against two senior former military commanders. In Phnom Penh, critics accuse the government of interfering in the high-profile prosecutions.

The war crimes tribunal has long been split over how many former Khmer Rouge cases it should prosecute.

The international prosecutor Andrew Cayley said last year that he expected to see no more than 10 people stand trial for their alleged roles in the deaths of around two million people during the movement’s rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

But his Cambodian counterpart, Chea Leang, has opposed prosecuting more than five people. The first of those was the former security chief Comrade Duch, whom the court last year convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. His sentence is under appeal.

The other four, who make up Case Two, are the movement’s last surviving senior leaders. Their trial is expected to start later this year.

But while those cases are moving forward, the Cambodian government has long opposed prosecuting Cases Three and Four - involving the five remaining suspects.

The prosecution is tasked with assessing the court’s investigation and determining whether or not there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

This week international prosecutor Andrew Cayley said it is clear that much more work is needed on Case Three.

“If you’re asking me how much more investigation needs to be done, I would simply use the words 'a significant amount' of investigation is still left to be done in that case,” Cayley said.

Cambodia remains an authoritarian country and the government’s opposition to Cases Three and Four has had a chilling effect on the tribunal’s Cambodian staff, most of whom have refused to work on the cases.

This week the investigating judges in Case Three closed their investigation and handed the case file back to the prosecution.

“I don’t consider that the investigation is concluded and I’ve asked for a number of steps to be taken including the interviewing of the suspects who are named in the introductory submission," Andrew Cayley said as he explained what work is still needed, "and a number of other steps including investigation of crime sites also originally named by the prosecution in the introductory submission, which haven’t been investigated at all.”

Cayley’s comments appear to confirm widespread rumors that the investigating judges did very little work on Case Three.

But Cayley’s Cambodian counterpart, Chea Leang, later released a press statement recommending that Case Three be closed.

Chea Leang said she had examined the case file, and decided that the unnamed suspects were not senior leaders and were not among those most responsible for crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge - the two categories that define those whom the court can prosecute.

With the Cambodian prosecutor, the government and the investigating judges all pushing to close Case Three, outside observers doubt that the prosecution will go forward.

International prosecutor Andrew Cayley’s last option for Case Three is to appeal its closure to a bench of five judges. Three of the judges are Cambodian and trial observers believe the bench would likely vote to dismiss the case.

FILE - In this July 19, 2007 file photo, an iceberg is seen melting off the coast of Ammasalik, Greenland. A new assessment of climate change in the Arctic shows the ice in the region is melting faster than previously thought and sharply raises projections of global sea level rise this century.

“The stage is now set to guarantee that all Cambodians have access to reliable information about climate change.”

The majority of Cambodians have little understanding of the causes of climate change, due to a lack of information, a new poll has found.

In a survey by the BBC World Service Trust of 2,401 Cambodians from all walks of life, about 85 percent said they had heard of climate change, although they associated it with disease, farming troubles and drought.

Very few respondents connected climate change or global warming with industry or vehicle use, according to the report, “Understanding Public Perception of Climate Change in Cambodia.”

More understanding could come from clear explanations, Charles Hamilton, country director for the World Service Trust, said in announcing the survey results in Phnom Penh this week.

“We need to keep the language straight forward and simple and not complex; like talking about the mitigation, adaption, what does that mean to a farmer or a fisherman?” he said. “They should be our main audience in Cambodia: these people with limited education who need to have clear information about what it means to their lives. It needs to be relevant.”

Environment Minister Mok Mareth said the report provided necessary information that would be helpful to the government and other institutions wanting to raise public awareness of climate change and its impacts.

“The stage is now set to guarantee that all Cambodians have access to reliable information about climate change,” he said. “ And we know the information to be conveyed needs to be understandable and relevant.”

Brian Lund, East Asia director for Oxfam America, said education and accurate, simple information play a crucial role in empowering people to adapt to and recover from the effects of climate change.